Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool MakersSmiles, Samuel
History
Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers
Smiles, Samuel
Industrial arts -- Biography; Iron industry and trade -- Great Britain -- Biography
[19] One of these is entitled 'A Coffee-house Dialogue, or a Discourse
between Captain Y---- and a Young Barrister of the Middle Temple; with
some Reflections upon the Bill against the D. of Y.' In this broadside,
of 3 1/2 pages folio, published about 1679, Yarranton is made to favour
the Duke of York's exclusion from the throne, not only because he was a
papist, but for graver reasons than he dare express. Another
scurrilous pamphlet, entitled 'A Word Without Doors,' was also aimed at
him. Yarranton, or his friends, replied to the first attack in a folio
of two pages, entitled 'The Coffee-house Dialogue Examined and Refuted,
by some Neighbours in the Country, well-wishers to the Kingdom's
interest.' The controversy was followed up by 'A Continuation of the
Coffee-house Dialogue,' in which the chief interlocutor hits Yarranton
rather hard for the miscarriage of his "improvements." "I know," says
he, "when and where you undertook for a small charge to make a river
navigable, and it has cost the proprietors about six times as much, and
is not yet effective; nor can any man rationally predict when it will
be. I know since you left it your son undertook it, and this winter
shamefully left his undertaking." Yarranton's friends immediately
replied in a four-page folio, entitled 'England's Improvements
Justified; and the Author thereof, Captain Y., vindicated from the
Scandals in a paper called a Coffee-house Dialogue; with some
Animadversions upon the Popish Designs therein contained.' The writer
says he writes without the privity or sanction of Yarranton, but
declares the dialogue to be a forgery, and that the alleged conference
never took place. "His innocence, when he heard of it, only provoked a
smile, with this answer, Spreta vilescunt, falsehoods mu st perish, and
are soonest destroyed by contempt; so that he needs no further
vindication. The writer then proceeds at some length to vindicate the
Captain's famous work and the propositions contained in it.
[20] This work (especially with the plates) is excessively rare. There
is a copy of it in perfect condition in the Grenville Library, British
Museum.
[21] Dr. Nash, in his History of Worcestershire, has thrown some doubts
upon this story; but Mr. Green, in his Historical Antiquities of the
city, has made a most able defence of Yarranton's statement (vol.i. 9,
in foot-note).
CHAPTER V.
COALBROOKDALE IRON WORKS--THE DARBYS AND REYNOLDSES.
"The triumph of the industrial arts will advance the cause of
civilization more rapidly than its warmest advocates could have hoped,
and contribute to the permanent prosperity and strength of the country
far move than the most splendid victories of successful war."--C.
BABBAGE, The Exposition of 1851.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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